23 Jul An Open Letter to Our Customers (Part I)
To all our amazing customers,
So much has changed in the year since opening our first store! Veloce has grown, evolved, and adapted to its environment in ways I could have never imagined. We’ve experienced the summer, we’ve experienced the winter, and as an organization we’re really learning how this ship sails! Business is complex, expensive, and (at times) stressful, but the reward of community, health, and progress is so worth it!
As the leader of a new business, I’ve recently been challenged to more ‘openly’ communicate our organization’s direction and purpose to our community. Answers to questions as broad as “Why do we exist?” or as specific as “What is our 5 year plan?” are really important in understanding who we are as a team/organization/company! It’s so easy for these very important concepts to be forgotten, miscommunicated, misunderstood, or misused, and yet, they are what drive us to keep going forward every day.
Over the next 1-2 weeks I will be publishing a handful of ‘Open Letters’ about our company–about its mission, its vision, the strategy and road ahead. Transparency has always been an important value in my life, so this is all stuff that I’m excited to be sharing! We have BIG aspirations for our future, and I really hope you will come along for the ride.
What do we want to do? (a.k.a. our Mission)
This first open letter is a window into Veloce’s soul. What each of us does with our lives is a product of the values, principles, ideals, and environment that shape us. The same is true in business! Our Mission–‘what we’re doing with our life!’–is shaped by those same factors. The following three items are value/mission hybrids. Rather than just state a value as some organizations do (say, “excellence”, for example), I believe it is important to ground one’s values in actions. I do this by turning them into verbs.
So here we go. At Veloce, our mission is to:
1.) Enrich Our Community
During one of Veloce’s earlier stages we were nothing more than a ‘pop-up’, setting up tents at regional races with tools, coffee, spare parts, and energy bars. We were there because nobody else was. Cyclists were showing up to events from hours away, and no one was there to replace the water bottle they forgot at home, tighten their handlebars, or help replace a flat tire. We started doing pop-ups at races because we wanted to support riders!
This is still our primary mission, and it informs EVERY SINGLE policy or program we develop. Enriching our community means two things: creating new riders and supporting current riders. Everything from group rides and outreach programs, to store promotions and eCommerce development is done through the lens of community enrichment. If it’s not going to effectively support new and current riders, we’re not doing it!
2.) Create Disproportionate Value
One of the most earth-shattering concepts I learned very early in my business life pertains to value: the more value you give, the more value you receive. In order to be successful in life, you have to create REAL value that people actually care about!
At Veloce, we’re focused on the long-term, on the community around our region and around our country. This long-term perspective frees us to create the disproportional level of value we believe our community deserves! Why ‘disproportionate’? Well, we feel that every time an individual interacts with Veloce, whether on a group ride, at an event, during a sale, or while reading a blog post, that individual should feel that she is receiving disproportionately more value than she is giving. If a customer comes into the store for a bike tune-up, he should feel like he got WAY MORE than he paid for. This value is delivered through customer interaction, fast turn-around time, helpful service ‘report cards’, and sometimes just friendly communication!
Providing Disproportional Value is really just another way of saying ‘we go the extra mile.’ We want to ‘go the extra mile’ for every one of our customers, even if it means we don’t make money on a sale or we ‘take a hit’ on a product return. It’s all about our long-term relationship, and we want you to trust us to deliver disproportionate value now, next year, and ten years from now.
3.) Raise the Bar of Excellence
My time in the military really inspired my appreciation for sound and meaningful values. The third and final core value of the US Air Force is, “Excellence in All We Do”–an interesting value for an organization with no traditional products or services (at least not in the way we usually think of products.) Nevertheless, I found this value perpetually relevant to my work, influencing the way I trained, worked out, prepared for meetings, and accomplished my duties. Excellence, I have found, has less to do with a particular product and more to do with a mindset.
The fact is, the perception of ‘excellence’ in the cycling industry has taken quite a beating over the past few decades. As the industry grows and innovates at a rapid pace, bike shops do everything they can to keep up, often struggling to deliver the level of value and excellence many customers expect. It’s hard to keep up! New tools must be purchased, new technologies must be implemented, and staff training must be current–this is all a lot of work, and exceeds the bandwidth of many existing local or regional bicycle companies.
For me, “Raising the Bar of Excellence” might be Veloce’s paramount value. Why? Because it directly correlates to the other two values. If we are successfully raising the bar of excellence, it will require that we consistently create disproportionate value to our community which will in-turn enrich our community.
So what does “Raising the Bar of Excellence” look like? A few examples:
a.) Uncompromising attention to detail – When we bring a bike into our service center, we take ownership of it. We diagnose problems like it’s our own, we suggest service options like it’s our own, and we work on it like it’s our own. We mind the scuffs and blemishes, we mind timeliness, and we are sensitive to the cost.
b.) Consistency – Unfortunately, bike shops are known for their inconsistent work. “I always make sure Technician A works on my bike at the shop because Technician B never does a good job.” This is normal in the cycling industry, and that is flat-out not cool. Imagine if the healthcare industry were this way? Or the restaurant industry? Consistency is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL! This requires a commitment to employee training, clear protocols, checks & balances, and committed, honest employees.
c.) Professional Environment – Another thing bike shops are known for: messes. Before I jump onto a soapbox with this one, let quickly sum up my thoughts. Disorganization and uncleanliness = cutting corners, lack of attention to detail, and either a poor work ethic or poor planning. NONE of these represent the kind of business I want working on my bike, much less taking up space in a crowded industry.
My hope is that as Veloce continues to climb toward higher levels of excellence, that it will encourage the industry around us to follow suit, thereby benefiting the whole community.
Summary and Disclaimer
Veloce is committed to the cycling community. Long term growth of the cycling community requires a long-term perspective and meaningful, effective values. Veloce is involved in a number of different business ‘directions’, but at its core, it is driven by these three missions: 1.) to enrich the community, 2.) to create disproportionate value, 3.) to raise the bar of excellence.
Disclaimer: The fact is, we fall short at much of this. As a business of a mere year, we are still in the ‘foundations stage’, building structures and a culture which will support these values in the decades to come. As we grow and evolve, however, my hope is that openness about our own values and vision will keep us accountable and on a clear trajectory.
Yesterday someone asked me, “What thing fundamentally satisfies you in your day-to-day work as an entrepreneur?” (This person is close to me and can see through the currently popular perception that entrepreneurship is all ‘exciting and fun’.) In answering him, I realized that my single biggest drive is not in growth or accomplishment or the hope for success–it’s in the belief that I can play a part in the betterment of my communities. I’ve seen so much good come out of cycling–positive relationships, renewed health, nature conservation, exploration and volunteerism–my hope is that through the pursuit of these values, Veloce, too, will contribute to that good.
-Aaron McNany, Founder
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